NKorea must scrap nukes despite peace overture: US, SKorea

SEOUL (AFP) - US and South Korean officials stressed Monday that North Korea must give up its nuclear weapons, one day after its leader Kim Jong-Il made a rare peace overture to his Seoul counterpart. Senior visiting North Korean officials met President Lee Myung-Bak Sunday to deliver a verbal message from Kim. The message was not disclosed. But both sides in the presidential talks expressed hopes for warmer relations after more than a year of high cross-border tensions. International anxiety has also risen since the Norths missile and nuclear tests earlier this year and subsequent United Nations sanctions. Philip Goldberg, the US diplomat tasked with enforcing the sanctions, held talks Monday with South Korean nuclear negotiator Wi Sung-Lac during a regional tour. Wi said the objective is a complete verifiable denuclearisation of North Korea. Goldberg replied: Absolutely, that is certainly our goal. The US official urged the North to return to six-nation nuclear disarmament talks which it abandoned in April. He reaffirmed that Washington will hold bilateral talks only within the six-party context. Goldberg has also visited Singapore and Thailand on this trip and will leave later Monday for Japan. In Singapore he urged Southeast Asian financial institutions to closely monitor transactions that could fund the Norths nuclear and missile programmes. Inter-Korean relations have been icy since the conservative Lee came to power in February 2008. He scrapped a sunshine aid and engagement policy and linked economic assistance to the Norths nuclear disarmament. On Sunday Lee asked the envoys to relay to leader Kim the consistent and firm principles of the governments North Korea policy-an apparent reference to the demand for denuclearisation. His office Monday denied newspaper reports that Kim in his message proposed another summit to settle differences. Kim sent the delegation to join mourning for former president Kim Dae-Jung, who held the first summit in 2000. A second was held in 2007. The two sides held only general discussions on developing relations and no issues related to an inter-Korean summit...were discussed, the office said in a statement. The governments consistent North Korea policy is that we will help North Korea if the North gives up its nuclear ambitions, chief presidential spokesman Lee Dong-Kwan said Monday. Dialogue is possible at any time and at any level, but this (policy) says an inter-Korean summit or South-North dialogue similar to those of the past are not acceptable. Critics of the decade-long sunshine policy say it failed to halt the Norths drive for nuclear weapons, and may even have indirectly funded it. During months of sabre-rattling, the North renounced the armistice which ended the 1950-53 war on the Korean peninsula, test-fired a volley of missiles and staged its second nuclear test. But this month it began taking a series of conciliatory steps, in what some analysts see as an attempt to ease the impact of the sanctions. Leader Kim pardoned two jailed US journalists after former president Bill Clinton visited Pyongyang. The North also freed a South Korean detainee and announced willingness to restart lucrative tourist trips and family reunions for South Koreans. It lifted tough restrictions on border crossings. The tourism projects for South Koreans are not affected by the UN sanctions, Goldberg said. My assessment is that at the moment these are issues outside of the resolution, he told reporters after his talks with Wi.